versusnurture | thirteen ♢ spam + voice

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thirteen ♢ spam + voice

[After a violent eviction from the last place she ever truly considered to be home, Abigail doesn't know if she'll ever be anything but transient again. The Barge was a close thing, though. It made her feel safe more than it made her feel vulnerable, and so while she doesn't exactly thrill at the prospect of being yanked back here with no warning, she understands. It's the Barge's way. And it's only temporary.]

[Bittersweet.]

[She is a little different, though not unrecognizable. Her hair is longer, her spine straighter, her expression hovering not between neutrality and a scowl but between inexplicable pleasantry and a not-always-nice smile. When she walks, it's like she's balancing books on her head, an angel and devil on either shoulder, both quiet for most of the time. And she doesn't wear the scarf; her scar stands in stark relief against the paler skin of her neck, as it had in the past few months here.]

[First, she looks for people who were important to her: Ben, Harvey, Arkin, David, Ned. Alana, if she's still here, though a large part of Abigail hopes she isn't. Then she looks for Hannibal, to get it out of the way.]

[Then she situates herself in the library or on the deck, alternating between the two, with a book open in her lap. She is unbothered by events. Anyone else can come to her.]

voice

For anyone who hasn't been here before and doesn't understand what's going on: there isn't anything to panic about, at least not yet. I've been here before, so I might be able to answer some of your questions.

( ooc; abigail is from after her own graduation!! weh. )

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[Nothing short of exemplary is, of course, not the same as good. She smiles and nods nevertheless. This is the response he knows to give, and she loves him for that just as she loved him once for his impeccable attention to the details of her insanity. Which has not gone away; it's just bled into the background, woven into the tapestry of her life. It is part of everything.]

That makes me very happy, Ben. I - feel as though it's my job to protect you.

I know you . . . don't get protected. But you protected me, once.

Does that make any sense?

[She's smiling at him and it doesn't make sense; she's telling him she wants to protect him and that doesn't make sense. She's not an X5. She's not from his unit. She's not...

He tries to think, unmoving, even his breathing shallow and minimal; it's difficult. There are too many unknowns, and if this place is not Manticore then he doesn't know how to make it make sense. He doesn't know how to act towards the people in it.

People who keep using his name.

His voice is flat, blank with terror; it would be unidentifiable to anyone that didn't know him, didn't know that this is how he hides. That he hides for one reason and one reason only.]

I am glad you are happy, but I do not understand. Were we in a field exercise together?

[She goes still and calm, letting silence rest between them as she considers her answer. All things considered, there are worse lies to tell.]

[But it's still a lie. She wonders. Finally, she shakes her head.]

That's close to the truth. But not quite.

You taught me survival skills. You helped me stay alive. Almost everything I know I learned from you, or refined with the help of your knowledge. That's why I know your name.

But I can call you by your designation, if that's easier.

I don't remember. I don't understand.

[And now it is seeping in through the cracks just at the edge of his voice, a brief glimpse before he tries to shove it down again, finds it too powerful. She's talking about things he absolutely cannot have done, or things he has absolutely no memory of doing. Is it a trick? A test?

Why doesn't it feel like a test? Why is he not alarmed by her in and of herself, but only her behavior, her words? Why does he want to believe her?

His throat feels tight and close and at last he breaks attention, fidgeting with a slow shift of his weight, bright brown eyes wide but narrowing on her.

Without a clear course of action, without a certainty in sight, he opens his mouth and tries to convince her of the only thing he knows for certain.]

I do not know how to help anyone stay alive. I know only basic survival skills, and have taught them to no one outside of my unit.

I did not survive. [How can he help anyone else survive when he can't even survive, himself? How can he have knowledge when he knew nothing that could save him?]

[It breaks her heart. She doesn't bother hiding this. She loves him, and she couldn't even attempt to hide that. Instead, she wrings her hands in an effort to keep them to herself.]

You didn't, no. And neither did I. We're both dead. But then you learned how, after you died. And you taught me in turn.

Did you ever learn about time travel? Just the theory. No fiction. But the possibility of it - of displacement in time as an abstract? That's sort of like what's happened.

Or if not that - just look at me. Decide if I'm lying, or if I'm just insane. Either way, we're not as different as you think we are.

[There is only a year of difference between the Ben she knows and the Ben standing before her, but the difference is pronounced: he is so much younger, now, somehow. He has not yet built the foundation of certainty he will later pull her up onto, he has not located the cornerstones to guide his efforts; he is adrift and alone and utterly, desperately confused.

But she isn't lying, he doesn't think. He isn't very accurate at determining the emotions of others, but she seems earnest to every level he can decipher; even discounting every third word as one he has little or no context for, she seems to believe what she is saying and, somehow, some way, she loves him.

Impossible as it is. He breathes out slowly, a low sound catching in his throat, which fades into her name.]

Abigail.

I do not understand any of this.

[Her shoulders slump. She is disappointed, not in him but in herself, for not being able to explain it right. Maybe there isn't any right way to explain it at all, not the way he is right now, but she feels like she owes him. Understanding some things, even if you can't understand everything, makes survival easier.]

Okay. That's okay.

Do you think you can trust me anyway? If not, I'll - I can go away. I don't want to scare you. That's the last thing I want.

[There is one last, lingering moment in which Ben cowers behind the shield he's built for himself; she asks if he thinks he can trust her and the answer is unequivocally no. He doesn't trust anyone.

But she is confident, and somehow she knows him, she loves him, unless it is some kind of test. His chest tightens at the thought - he can't afford to fail a test, especially not one like this - but his throat closes against the crack that exists directly down the center of everything he is and he knows he's going to give in.

So he does it all at once, like breaking a limb so it can be set to heal straight again. He lets out the breath in his lungs with a quiet, desperate noise, and the bright brown of his eyes becomes somehow heavier with his presence behind them.]

Please don't leave.

I want to understand. I'll do better. I... if you know me, really know me, you know I'm scared all the time. I'll do better. Please don't leave.

[There he is. God, just looking at him hurts, but it feels good, too: he's really in there. Despite all the shields, all the barricades, he's in there behind X5-493. He's there for her. She can be here for him, too.]

[She smiles, one of those rare, wholly genuine, bright-sun smiles that fill up the room. It's all for him. Everything she has become is thanks to what he gave her the space to be. He says please don't leave like there was ever any chance she would.]

Oh, Ben. I'll stay for as long as you need me to stay. That's what friends do for each other. That's what you did for me.

I promise. Okay? I won't leave.

[The smile makes him nervous; it is bright, beautiful, and somehow he feels fragile looking directly at her while she's looking at him like that. But he doesn't flinch away and he doesn't pull the shields back up; he swallows and with the blown-glass bravery he calls his, transparent and brittle but seamless, nods.

He feels slightly nauseous with it, with this feeling of freefall, of tumbling out into open air and not knowing why he took the step off the edge. Of not knowing where he'll land or if he'll survive the fall. But it's too late and now he grasps for what understanding he can, the bare bones - or perhaps the twisted remains - of the sharp-eyed, insatiable curiosity he will have - or once had - when she knows him.

He doesn't know what friends are, what they do for each other. He doesn't know what he did. He wants to, before he crashes to the earth again.]

Will you tell me a story? Will you help me understand who we are to each other, how this can happen?

[This frightens her - and she hasn't felt truly frightened in quite a while. She's been so strong, but this request might be too much. She trembles, an aspen in the wind. Can she tell him a story? He's the storyteller. He spins tales into truths. Not her.]

[But maybe this is her ultimate test. Maybe this is her second graduation. If she can do this, if she can teach Ben as Ben taught her, maybe--]

[Maybe nothing. It's not about her. It's about him, helping him to understand.]

[She takes a deep breath and steps across the room to sit carefully on the edge of the trunk. Folding her hands in her lap, she looks up at him, watches him until he gets as settled as he's going to get.]

[Then she begins.]

There was a girl who was a bright star. People circled her like planets, seeking her warmth. She didn't feel very warm to herself, in the same way that when you tickle yourself, it doesn't really tickle, so she didn't understand. She was also too bright to tell the difference between people like planets and people who, like her, were stars. The light of her own arms and legs and soul blocked out the light of bright stars and dark stars, keeping her all alone and feeling very small.

There were two satellites, a planet and a star, that circled closest to her. The planet was just a planet; the star was dark-hearted. That dark star tried to eat her up, to absorb her heat and her brightness and make itself bigger. But she did not die. More stars came - bright and dark - one muddy star, a swirl of light and dark, swallowing the first dark star, and one, the biggest and darkest star of all, pulling them all closer and inexorably closer until all of a sudden, it was the center of the universe. The center of everything.

It wanted to eat her up, too. And it did: gobbled her up and gained her power, though her strength barely made a dent in that dark star. It used her as fuel and left her behind.

When she emerged onto the other side of the universe, this bright star found there were no more planets. There were only stars, bright and dark and in between. They were all dead, just like her, but they seemed to pulse with life all the same. She was angry, burning hot, and she tried to burn the stars around her. Some of them became angry, too, and tried to burn her back. But one of them swallowed her anger and gave her soft light in return, of a new timbre that she felt through her whole body. He had been devoured, too, once upon a time, all his light extinguished; but he learned how to make it again.

She was so dim for such a long time. She thought she would never shine again. But this other star was quiet and kind and patient; her anger didn't make him angry; he just circled her until she began circling him, too. And then slowly, ever so slowly, she felt her light shine again.

They shone together. Two stars, with reclaimed light, pushing up close against the darkness but never passing over into it. Neither good nor bad - just bright.

[She breathes in, out. Gives a brittle smile.]

Just bright.

[She almost doesn't agree; he sees it, wonders if he's asked too much, asked the wrong question, said the wrong thing. He draws a breath to say something different, but he can't imagine what it would be, though he tries as he eases over to the side of the cot and lowers himself down to it. That is how she begins speaking before he can stop her.

And then he doesn't want her to stop. He listens with rapt attention, follows the rhythm of the story with remarkable ease; there are a lot of twists and turns, a large cast of stars - people - without names or faces or context, but in this form it's easy for him to ignore them until they make sense or to forget about them when they don't. He focuses on the girl who is so bright she cannot see others clearly, he follows her journey, and in the end he comes out the other side with her.

It's the changeover of pronouns - it to he, the second star is given its own nameless identity - that strikes him first when he repeats the words back to himself, but it isn't until he realizes she's not adding more that he begins actively searching for what he'd originally asked for. Ben is in this story, somewhere; he thinks maybe he might have been the darkest star, thinking of how he hunted the men for their strength for his Lady. To gobble them up and give Her strength.

But she - of course she's the star, of course, she shone directly before him but minutes ago and he can see how bright she is - loves him. Somehow. He did not use her up and leave her behind, he can't have. But neither can he be that other star: he is angry, not patient, not kind. He is devoured, and he has no light of his own, and he can show no one how to shine.

...but she knows him.]

Abigail. [Cautious, almost, tentative. Testing out a ledge before he shifts his weight onto it, watching her carefully for the moment the test is failed, the question answered wrong. Watching for the punishment, while reaching ever so carefully for the reward.] How long have we known one another?

How old are we when we meet?

[He understands, then. Almost. Nearly. It's close enough that she shines again, yes she does, just for him, her warden, her friend. Her smile is bright and wide and pure as a summer's day. For him, she is guileless; she never hides. Not anymore.]

[He taught her how to tell the truth when it was the safe thing to do, how to make safety when it could be made, how to walk away when it couldn't. How to live without family if need be, how to become not a monster or a victim but a true postmortem survivor. Her Ben.]

[She knows him. He knows her, more to the point, better than anyone.]

You're older than you are now when we meet. I'm younger. Eighteen. You're-- [Her smile softens, becomes old at the edges. She remembers how he told her - I was 21 when I died - how it struck her. She wonders when he'll start counting again.]

You're older than you are now. But not by much. Maybe a year.

Do you understand the story, even if you don't understand the mechanics of it? Can you trust that it's a true story, Ben?

[That, too, is impossible. The inference is, of course, that in a year maybe he will be in a position to do anything at all like the star in her story; he hasn't bothered thinking ahead, when his present is all he can deal with, and that not well. His future has never been his own. The people around him dictate his place in the world and at any time they may decide there is none; even if they don't, there isn't. He has learned this, hurting others as he went until he was finally stopped.

More impossibilities. She spins a story like he once did, explaining the impossible and unknown in such a way that makes sense on the surface but, when pulled apart and held up to logic, to reality, does not even exist let alone become viable. And yet.

And yet. He speaks slowly, ignoring the answer to his own question for now; the temporal discrepancy is a much more real impossibility. Maybe he's just crazy. Maybe this is what it looks like now.]

Some. Maybe. I... am not certain of my place in it. Not certain of how it is possible, of course. We... [He is about to say we are not stars, but he remembers how she smiled, and thinks maybe if someone asked him what stars were now he would have a valid reason to suggest they are people, before or after or now.

He draws a breath in, half-closes his eyes. Pushes down whatever tries to seize his chest, though it makes his voice negligibly - but tellingly - thicker.] Is it? A true story?

Is it?

[It's not her that he doubts. It's that he could ever have that life, ever have someone that loves him as completely, as openly, as she clearly does.]

It is.

[She says this without hesitation, without even a flicker of doubt. yes. It is a true story. It's a story of both of them, these two bright stars.]

It's a true story about how I died, and how you helped me learn how to live again. You're my star, Ben. It's a story about learning to shine.

I wouldn't tell you a story like that if it wasn't true. No matter how impossible it seems, I swear it's true. On everything you've ever done for me, which is -

[Her smile flickers, like she's about to cry; but she doesn't. She is stronger than she's ever been before. He brings this out in her. She doesn't know how he does it, how he always has and always will, just by being.]

Which is a lot.

[Ben watches her, less openly curious than the man she knows, but no less intent; he sees the flicker of her smile, the way she doesn't cry, and above all that she means every word she says.

Trust is not something he does; it's not something he can do, outside of his unit. He learned that the hard way, confirmed over and over and over again, its own kind of conditioning, but she means every word she says, and she says he is something to her. He is a lot to her. And she is a lot to him.

Someday. He nods, finally, one precise motion; tenses and relaxes a muscle in his jaw. And in the kind of voice that secrets are told and secrets are kept, asks quietly:]

Are you a princess?

[A princess? It's tempting to laugh. She's never been anything further from it. For the longest time she was a prized daughter, then she was a prize, then she was a daughter again but no longer prized. A princess, no. There's never been any kind of royalty in her.]

[She doesn't laugh at Ben; instead, she lowers her voice to match his tone. Secrets, just for them.]

I'm not a princess any more than you're a prince. I'm just a girl trying to learn a few things.

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thirteen ♢ spam + voice

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